Self censorship and so what

I have no problem with self censorship.  I’ve gotten over it.  It’s a fact of life.  My pride, my ego have drained away, in the face of the harsh reality that China is all I got.  If I were to ever be banned from China, I’d need a new way of life.  I honestly don’t know what I’d do with myself. 

First thing that would happen is I’d probably no longer have a company.  No longer able to travel and conduct biz in China would destroy my relationships.   So I need to make hard decisions based on the cold reality of today.   And I very knowingly choose self censorship.   The older one gets the more one realizes life is about compromise.  Like Oxygen one cannot live without it.

You don’t see it, you say?  

There are things I’ve written that have been posted only after much reflection and several drafts.  One of my previous posts on China paraphrasing “now vs back in 37” had nearly a whole paragraph deleted, upon reflection.

That’s the ugly side of China; China leverages your love of China against you.   China is a mistress better left unspurned.  Quick to feel slighted, perceived or not, it tends to overreact.

How many scholars have been banned from China?  What happened to their careers? Pretty much wiped them out overnight, didn’t it?

Brad Pitt?  He’s been all over the world.

Never been to China.

It works.

Not that one can decipher or predict the punishment one will receive.

Remember A-Mei?  The buxom Taiwan singer that sang at the Taiwanese inauguration of a former Pro Independence President?  Banned from China.  Albeit for only a couple of years.   You don’t think she was relieved it wasn’t more severe?  How much money did she lose?  500 million young kids….that’s a lot of concert tickets.

I guess that’s the problem with the Laowai.  When we’re banned, it’s usually for life.

Oh some people are smart.  Remember Liu De Hua? (Andy Lau) The singer of that over the top patriotic song abt how he’s so Chinese…..我是中国人！

That one tune probably cost him a ton of invitations to Western dinner parties……remember that song came out at a time when China(yet again) was having one of its bad moments with the West.  

 Even half of Hong Kong rolled it’s eyes when that song came out.   And he cares…..what?  You think he had his eyes on the West when he made that video?  You think he was calculating his friends “would understand”? 

LDH was one of the first popular non Mainland celebrities to come out and openly state his Pro China sentiment.  He even beat Jackie Chan to the table.   How many product deals do you think he got from that video?   How much capital did he earn with the powers that be?  You think his concerts got banned in China?  Turns out LDH’s music video was probably the best business move by a Hong Kong celebrity in a generation. 

We bloggers are different.  We don’t get paid to blog.  We do it as we reach middle age and crave to put our interests down on paper.   Everyone needs a hobby.  We’re not important.  We’re just satisfying an internal need.  But we’re not journalists.  We don’t get paid to be critical of China.   I for one, will not go out of my way to overly criticize China, just to legitimize the existence of my blog.  

China has a billion people Man!  We leave our Soul and Dignity at the door when we enter the Heavenly Kingdom.